Years ago it was common to see a bumper sticker that read "Moonlight in Vermont — or Starve," which suggested that many Vermonters needed to work a second job in order to afford to live here. Like most bumper sticker slogans, reality is more complex and nuanced.

In good times and bad, working a second job is certainly one way to help make ends meet. Or a second job may provide someone with extra spending money. Or it may just be an enjoyable experience in and of itself. We probably all know people who have a full-time job and run a small home-based business as much for the enjoyment as for the profit.

But do people get a second job in response to hard economic times? The numbers show there's not much relationship between the number of people working more than one job and the state of the economy. Nationwide there's no increase — or decrease — in multiple job-holding during recessions or during stable economic times. Indeed the percentage of American workers who work more than one job has actually been falling pretty steadily for the past two decades. In 1995 a little less than 7 percent of American workers worked more than one job. Today it's a little under 5 percent.

The numbers are a little different in Vermont. The percentage of Vermonters who moonlight is about the same today as it was in the late 1990s, although the number who moonlight in Vermont is more volatile than for the nation as a whole. Today, out of 336,000 employed Vermonters, just under 9 percent of them, 30,000 people, work more than one job.

More interesting than the trend of multiple job-holding is the level. Only one state — South Dakota — has as many multiple jobholders as Vermont, but Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, and North Dakota come close.

Why is Vermont so different? Some of the reasons are demographic. White workers are slightly more likely to hold down two jobs than non-white workers and all of the states with high levels of multiple job holders have very low minority populations. In addition, the likelihood of holding two jobs is higher the more education a worker has —which is not what you might expect. College graduates are more likely to work multiple jobs than high school grads, and high school grads are more likely than high school dropouts. Vermont has a more highly educated population than many states.

These reasons explain only part of the gap between Vermont and the nation. We really don't know why so many Vermonters work more than one job. But it is worthwhile remembering that despite the relatively high share of Vermonters working multiple jobs, it is still less than one in 10 workers.

Why do people work more than one job? You might think the most important reason is that they need the extra money to make ends meet or to pay off a car loan or other debt. Surprisingly, that's true for only about one-quarter of all Americans who moonlight, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. (We don't have any data specific for Vermont, but there's no reason to think Vermonters are that much different in their reasons for holding down two or more jobs.)

More than one-third of the multiple jobholders work to earn extra income, not because they're in debt or barely hanging on to their current lifestyle and need the extra cash to survive. Nearly one in five people who moonlight take the second job because they simply enjoy working.

The next time you hear someone complain that many more people today are working two jobs than in the past, you can gently inform them that for the most part, they're mistaken. There are not more people working two jobs than there were in the past, and most of them do it because they enjoy working or they want to earn some extra pocket change. It's not because without their second job they'd starve.

Moonlight in Vermont is a great song. But you can enjoy the moonlight without working a second job.

Art Woolf is Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Vermont.